I peer to left and to right. But most houses seem to have numbers not names. “I’m looking for Kendric House.”
“You’re going to Kendric House?” He sounds incredulous.
“What’s wrong with that?”
He studies my face for a moment, as if assessing me for lunacy. “For a start, it’s not in Llancaradoc.”
Oh God, no. Suddenly I feel utterly defeated. I’m cold, wet and hungry. And now it seems, in the wrong part of the country. That’s what I mean, despite my best efforts to plan, be organised and self-reliant, circumstances conspire to make me need rescuing.
“Where is it then?” I ask, trying to stay positive.
“In Kendric Park,” he says this like it’s obvious, like he’s making a joke.
I let my baffled expression speak for me.
He smiles. “Sorry. It’s a couple of miles over the next hill.”
Of course it is. Everything in this part of the country seems to involve hills.
“Come on, drive. I’ll show you,” he says sounding very much like a rescuer.
“Isn’t this taking you far out of your way? I can ask someone for directions.”
“You want to risk that? On a Saturday?”
“What’s wrong with Saturdays?”
“Kids not at school.”
Ah. “Kids who take pleasure in writing misleading directions on the road signs.”
“The very same,” he says this as if naughty kids are a fact of life that he’s made his peace with.
I drive. Through and out of the village and up towards a big hill that obscures the view of anything behind it. Welsh Hagrid, next to me, is silent. The car heater is starting to warm up his rain damp coat and makes him smell of wet wool. And faintly, of aftershave. Can you wear aftershave without actually shaving? He looks like he hasn’t seen a razor in years. Whatever, it’s a surprisingly clean detail in a man who looks like a prehistoric creature.
My mother wouldn’t even allow such a man into her car – she wouldn’t be on the same street! To her, beauty is a privilege to be cherished and celebrated. And protected. A quick glance at my fingers on the steering wheel. In all the upset in the last week, I’d forgotten my nails.
I don’t agree with this whole beauty supremacy religion my mother follows, but after twenty-eight years, some of her teaching has stuck. Missing a pedicure feels like going out without knickers. There’s even a chip in the sheer nude polish on my thumb. Mum would be horrified if she saw it.
“Can you see it?” Welsh Hagrid asks suddenly making me fold my hand on the wheel to hide my nails.
He’s not looking at my fingers at all but straight ahead. Down in the valley there’s a large…pink building.
I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s a stately home, I guess, but what an unusual shape. From up here, it looks like a letter X but with the middle bit stretched wide. Half of it is built from the usual light grey stones, but the rest is a…I don’t know what. Stones that look a little pink.
The house is enormous. And strange. And…Now I understand why Hagrid looked at me as if I was insane.
“Does anyone live there? It looks derelict.”
“It is derelict.” He lifts his eyebrows in ayou’re-crazy-to-come-hereexpression. “Has been for decades. But in the last year the new owner has tried to fix it up, very slowly. I think they have a few rooms cleaned up.”
“Who is the new owner?” I ask not daring to think it might be my father.
“Evan Kendric. He’s the heir to the old family that used to live here. He turned up last Christmas and started cleaning and renovating. They’ve even got a couple of tenants.”
“Do you know if one of the tenants is Professor William Jones?”
But Hagrid shakes his head even before I’ve finished my question. “Don’t know anything about them.” He sends me a speculative look. “Is this who you’ve come to see?”
